Days and Months and Years but by Activity and Enjoyment by the Rational Acts of a Rational Nature then sure I may boldly conclude That the more regularly and constantly we pursue the proper Business of our Nature the more actively and vigorously we are carried on towards that which is our proper Good so much the more we live so much the more rich and racie the more true natural and pure is Life and all this is no other Philosophy than what the Wise-man has long ago advanced For honourable Age is not that which standeth in length of time nor that is measured by number of years But Wisdom is the gray hair unto men and an unspotted life is old age Wisdom 4. 8 9. This indeed is a Truth of too vast an Importance to be a new one for were it but once throughly imbibed it would relieve all the Pressures and redress all the Grievances of Humane Life We complain of Life that it is dull and nautious we impeach it a vanity and vexation of shortness and uncertainty how would this one Notion well pursued soon silence all these Complaints he would never think Life too short who where ripe for Death he would never complain that Life were uncertain who were always ready to die he would not accuse Life of dulness and nauseousness who were daily advancing his Discovery of Truth and enlarging his Possession of Good nor would he ever charge it with Vanity and Vexation were his Actions still wise and rational for thus every act of Life would be an act of Fruition too being both agreeable to Nature and attended by a delightful Approbation and Complacency of Conscience By this time 't is plain what the Design of this Chapter is namely to compensate the shortness by the excellence of Life and redress the vanity and vexation of it by its Perfection a Design I confess worthy of a more comprehensive Mind and a more elevated Fancy than mine a Design demanding all the Wisdom and Experience of an Active and all the Thought and Learning of a Contemplative Life a Design in a word that requires at once the Prudence of old Age and the Vigour of blooming Years that I am willing to contribute the little I can towards it proceeds from a sense of its being a Duty I owe my self and Mankind let me not therefore be oppressed by the grandeur of my Subject and the expectation of my Reader I promote the good of Mankind in my way and as I am able it were a Crime if I did not and it will be Injustice to expect more from me Besides I purpose not here to lay out my whole strength thô this be little having destined an entire Volume to Humane Perfection and therefore shall here Discourse but very briefly and in very general terms of the Improvement of Life All the Advice I shall offer here may be reduced to these Three Heads First That we endeavour to perfect and exalt our Nature Secondly That we begin to live betimes or if we cannot now do that our Years being far spent that we begin to live immediately Thirdly That we avoid all those things that are Enemies to our true Life Sect. 1. We must endeavour to perfect and exalt our Nature The Necessity of this will be very conspicuous to any one who shall consider that the Perfection of our Acts depends upon the Perfection of our Faculties and Powers just as the pleasure of Seeing does on the goodness of the Eye or that of Hearing on the Perfection of the Ear so much and much more does the Beauty of Humane Action and the Gust of all our Enjoyments depend upon the clearness of the Judgment the rectitude of the Will and the vigour of our Passions To render this Argument yet more visible and palpable let us consider how mean a thing Man were and how contemptible Life without Cultivation or Improvement The Body is but a heap of Dust something there needs to stamp a value upon it something there must be to give Sweetness to the Eye Charm to the Tongue and Grace to Motion 'T is a meer Machine alike capable of being made the Instrument of Cruelty or Mercy of Lust or Chastity of Avarice or Charity 't is Religion must purge and sanctifie it 't is Wisdom must conduct and guide it and make it the happy Instrument of great and glorious Actions The Spirit within us is a volatile mutable unsteady thing capable of all sorts of Impressions suspended as it were between Heaven and Earth floating between the different Shores of Good and Evil Knowledge and Vertue forms it into Angel stamps a sort of Divinity upon it for we art not born but made great 't is Wisdom that imprints it with bright Idea's that impregnates it with noble Passions and determines its tendency towards its true Good and supreme Felicity Our Conversation with the World is naturally nothing else but a dull entercourse of Forms and Ceremonies and Civilities a nauseous Circulation of the same tastless and superficial Entertainments a tedious and repeated pursuit of vain mistaken ends and often baffled Designs 't is Vertue and Knowledge that gives gust and relish to our Enjoyments and Life and Spirit to all our Actions that leads us on towards excellent Ends and inspires us with immortal Hopes our Fortune and Condition in the World is naturally a fluctuating unstable Agitation made up of a confused and motly variety of Events Knowledge and Vertue fix the floating Island and give Light and Beauty to the Chaos I can never carry this Argument too far and therefore I will yet a little more particulary consider what Accession or Increase of Life we derive from perfecting our Natures Does Life consist in the Exercise of our Faculties True Life then is the Portion of the Active and Industrious the dull and heavy Motion of the Sluggard is but a faint Imitation or Resemblance of it 't is a diseased languishing thing a compound or mixture wherein there seems to be more of Death than Life Does Life consist in Fruition how dark and dismal are those of the Wicked compared to the calm and bright days of the Good for what can there be like Enjoyment to that Man who dares make no Reflections on the past nor can entertain any just Hopes of the future and whose Mind concurs not with his present Passions and refuses to joyn in the sensless Designs he is upon Does Life lastly consist as I have proved it does in the Knowledge of Truth and Love of Goodness how scanty narrow and beggarly is the Life of the Fool and Sinner compared to that of the Wise and Vertuous Tully said One vertuous day was to be preferred before a sinful immortality this is true in the present Sense and Notion of Life Error and Ignorance are as it were a Disease or State of Insensibleness and Death to the Understanding the Mind that is utterly ignorant of Objects worthy of it has nothing to imploy
all their Train or Retinue of Passions in the Heart or Soul Now because all Morality consists in the right use of those Blessings which our great and bountiful Author confers upon us therefore in a moral sense the true Life of Man is nothing else but the right use of our whole Nature an active imploying it in its due Functions and Offices a vigorous Exercise of all our Powers and Faculties in a manner suitable to the Dignity and Design to the Frame and Constitution of our Beings To live then in a moral sense is to know and contemplate to love and pursue that which is the true Good of Man this is the Life of the Understanding Will Affections and of the whole Man and whatever acts of ours are not some way or other conversant about Truth and Goodness are not properly Acts of Humane Life but Deviations from it And here I cannot chuse but pause a little to admire and magnifie the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of the Almighty Architect who has contrived an inseparable Connection and necessary Dependance between Life Perfection and Fruition every rational Act every right Use or Exertion of our Natural Powers and Faculties as it is of the Essence of Moral Life so does it contribute to the Improvement and Perfection of our Beings and to the Pleasure and Felicity of our state for Perfection is the Result of such repeated Acts and Pleasure of our entertaining our selves with proper and agreeable Objects Happy man to whom to live improve and enjoy is the same thing who cannot defeat God's Goodness and his own Happiness but by perverting his Nature and depraving his Faculties but by making an ill use or none at all of the Favours and Bounties of God If we examine this Notion of Life more closely and distinctly and resolve this general Account of it into several Particulars we shall easily arrive at a fuller and clearer Comprehension of it First 'T is evident from this Account of Life that it does not consist in Sloth in the meer marriage or cohabitation of Soul and Body in meer Duration or Continuance in this World Solomon indeed out of a natural Abhorrence of Death tells us Truly Light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is to behold the Sun Eccl. 2.7 Something it is if we must call it pleasure 't is but a faint and low one such as all the Irrational Creatures but Bats and Owls and Moles are capable of but according to my Philosophy it can never deserve the Name of Life He that possesses Vital Powers and Faculties is in a Capacity of Life but he only that exerts them Lives To live is not to spend or wast our time but to imploy it 'T is a lamentable History of Life when it can all be summed up in the few Syllables of a Funeral Ring he lived to or rather as it is wont to be expressed he died such a day of the Month such a year of his Age for indeed he lived not at all Life is a meer Dream not only on the account of its shortness but also of its Night and Lethargy when stupid Ignorance confines and dims the Prospect and Sluggishness enfeebles all the powers of the Mind Vigour and Activity Fruition and Enjoyment make up Life without these Life is but an imperfect Embryo a mingled twilight that never will be Day the Images the slothful form of things are faint and obscure like Pictures drawn in watery Colours and weak and imperfect stroaks and vanish as easie as those half Sounds and imperfect Forms which we take in between sleep and waking all their Passions move drowsily and heavily and all their Entertainments have no more relish than abortive Fruit which can never be ripened into Sweetness or Beauty When I have observed any one thus wasting away a whole Life without ever being once well awake in it passing through the World like a heedless Traveller without making any Reflections or Observations without any Design or Purpose beseeming a Man ah thought I is this that Creature for which this great Theater the World was made for which it was so adorned and so enriched Is this the Creature that is the Epitome of the World the top and glory of the visible Creation a little inferiour to Angels and allied to God Is this Machine acted by a moving Flame and by a wise and immortal Spirit Ah! how much is this poor useless stupid thing sunk beneath the Dignity and Design of its Nature How far short is it faln of the Glory to which God had destined it Shall this contemplative thing ever be admitted to Eternal Life who has so wretchedly fooled away this Temporal one Or can Crowns and Kingdoms be reserved for one who has been so ill a Steward of all these Talents God has committed to him No surely I could upon the first thought imagine his sluggish Soul would vanish like those of Brutes or as the Stoicks fancy those of Fools I could easily imagine that it could sleep not as some fancy all Souls do to the Resurrection but to all Eternity But upon better consideration I find this ignorant and incogitant Life is not so innocent as to deserve no worse a Fate For is it a small Crime to live barren and unfruitful endowed with so many Talents to frustrate the design of our Creation to choak and stifle all the Seeds of a Divine Life and Perfection to quench the Grace and Spirit of God In a word is it a small Crime to be false and perfidious to God unjust and injurious to Man No it cannot be and therefore in the parable of our Saviour wherein the last Audit or Day of Accompts is represented the slothful and wicked Servant signifie one and the same thing and must undergo one and the same Sentence Secondly Life cannot consist in Sensuality that is in the meer caressing our Senses or the gratification of our Carnal Appetites The Reasons of this Assertion are evident from the general Notion of Life For first This is not the Exercise of the whole Nature but a part of it and that the inferiour and ignobler too Secondly It is not an Imployment suitable to the Dignity of our Nature First Sensuality imploys only the meaner part of us St. Paul makes mention of the outward and the inward man and seems to make up the whole man of Spirit Soul and Body and some both Divines and Philosophers of no small note both Modern and Ancient have taught that there are two distinct Souls in man a Sensitive and a Rational one if this be so the Sensualist thô he seem fond of Life does foolishly contemn the better half of it and as much a Slave to Pleasure as he is he chuses to drink only the Dregs and lets the pure Streams of sprightly and delicious Life pass by untasted for if there be a Sensitive and Rational Soul there must be a Sensitive and a Rational Life too distinct and different from one another
called the Vigour and Activity but Storm and Agony of our Nature this is a state wherein the Understanding is covered with a Darkness of Hell that is Ignorance of Good and Evil and the Passions are but Furies unchained and let loose Fourthly Having thus by resolving particularly concerning Life that it consists not either in Sloth or Sensuality Worldliness or Devilishness pointed out those fatal Errours which mislead and seduce Men from the Paths of Peace and Happiness 't is now time to shew in the last place what it is wherein Life does more immediately and particularly consist that is in a vigorous and active Employment of the whole Man according to the Rules and Dictates of right Reason When I make Reason the Director and Guide of Humane Life when I constitute it Dictator over all the Powers and Passions of Man I do no more mean to exclude the Aid of Revelation and the Spirit of God than when I affirm the Eye to be the Guide of the Body I intend to deny the necessity of Light to good Eyes or of Spectacles and Collyriums to dim or disturbed ones The Proposition thus guarded will appear indisputable to any who shall consider the frame and make of Man that we are rational Creatures is a Truth never hitherto controverted and that Reason is the Soveraign Faculty in us appears from the Universal Appeal of all Sides and all Sects to its Tribunal Not the vertuous and wise only but the loose and the vicious plead the Authority of Reason in defence of their Choice and Actions and in all the numberless Disputes that are in the World thô only one side can have the warrant and countenance of Reason yet all do pretend to it so that thô there be no Power or Authority which in reality be more frequently opposed and violated there is also none which is more unanimously owned and universally acknowledged As therefore it is plain from what has been discoursed before That Life consists not in vital Powers and Faculties but in the Exercise and Employment of them so is it as plain that in this we are not to follow the Conduct of Fancy and Imagination of Lust and Passion but of Reason This is the right use of our Natural Gifts which distinguishes Man from Beasts and Men from one another the Hero from the Caitiff and Villain the Philosopher from the Fool and the Saint from the Sinner In this consists the Order and Dignity of Humane Nature in this the Beauty and Tranquility of Humane Life and in this the inward Joy and Peace of the Mind of Man This will be yet more manifest to whosoever will take the pains to enquire what the Office of Reason is 't is this which teaches us what rank we hold among the Creatures of God what station we fill in the World what our Relations and Dependencies are what the Duty and what the Hopes what the Benefit and what the Pleasure that result from each 'T is this which prescribes all our Powers and Passions their Order Place and Work 'T is this which distinguishes Truth and Falshood Good and Evil 'T is this which fills us with the Knowledge and enflames us with the Love of our Soveraign Happiness and Judges of the Means and Ways that lead to it and finally 't is this which teaches us to set a true rate and value upon all inferiour things in proportion to their tendency either to promote or obstruct our Soveraign Good Happy therefore is that Life where Reason is the Soveraign Arbitrator of all our Actions and where the Imagination and Passions all the Powers of the Soul are yet Servants and Instruments of Reason Happy this Life for it can neither want Pleasure to entertain it nor Business to imploy it happy the Soul which thus lives for it shall never want Comfort to support it Hopes to encourage it nor Crowns to reward it for as it grows in Wisdom and Goodness so must it in Favour with God and Man and its Peace and Tranquility its Joys and Expectations must receive a proportionable Increase too CHAP. III. Inferences drawn from the former Chapter First To cultivate our Reason The Vse of which is more particularly insisted on with respect to three things that is the imploying our Faculties the bearing Evil and enjoying Good Secondly To renounce every thing that opposes it as Fancy Passion Example Custom Thirdly That 't is possible to be happy in every state Fourthly That a long Life is a great Blessing considered either in it self or with respect to the Life to come FRom the Notion of Life thus stated 't is evident First That our Business is to Cultivate and Improve Reason for this as you have seen is to be the Guide and Superintendent of all our Powers and Faculties and the Arbiter and Judge of all our Actions If the light that is in you be darkness how great is that darkness Matth. 6.23 Vigour and Activity if Reason do not steer them will but prove mischievous and fatal to us Diligence and Industry themselves will only serve to corrupt our Nature and embroyl our Life every deviation from Reason is a deviation from our true Perfection and Happiness the Fool and the Sinner do in the Language of the Scripture signifie the same thing and so do Sin and Misery This is the true Original of all those Mischiefs which infest the World the neglect or contempt of right Reason 'T is this which makes our Complaints so numerous and so bitter 'T is this that makes us so weak and soft in Adversity so restless and little satisfied even in Prosperity it self 'T is this creates all those Disasters and Disappointments which make us often quarrel at Providence and curse our Fortune The folly of man perverteth his way and his heart fretteth against God Prov. 19.3 Well therefore did the Wiseman advise Prov. 4.7 Wisdom is the principal thing therefore get Wisdom and withal thy getting get Vnderstanding The Necessity of this does easily appear from the slightest Reflection upon the Work or Office of Reason of which I have given a brief and general Account before much more from the use of it in three great Points The Employing our Faculties the Enjoyment of Good and the Bearing Evil First The Employing c. the Soul of Man like a fertile Field seems alike apt to produce either Herbs or Weeds the Faculties of it are capable of being the Instruments of the greatest Evil or the greatest Good the greatest Good if regulated and conducted by Reason the greatest Evil if blindly and rashly led by any other Principle What is the Imagination of a Fool but a Shop of Toys and Trinkets not the Laboratory of a Philosopher where a thousand vain trifling and empty Ideas flutter confusedly up and down What his Memory but a Receptacle and Sink of Sins and Follies of mean and shameful Things and Actions not a Treasury of excellent Truths laid up like Amunition and Provision for
excellent account in this for when the retired Man doth cultivate the Neighbourhood and sow it with his Charity he seems but to plant and water his own Garden or plough and sow his own Fields and while he renders them more rich gay and fertile himself reaps the Pleasure and the Profit enjoys the Prospect and feasts on the Fruit Just so it is in this piece of Spiritual Husbandry he who imparts Wisdom and Instruction to another purifies and exalts his own Mind he that scatters the Expressions of his Bounty and Charity feels his Soul warm and delighted and finds his Vertue and his Joy enlarged for 't is with Grace as 't is with Nature the Exercise of each breeds both strength and pleasure to all which you may add That no Man consults more effectually the Interest and the Pleasure of his Retirement than he who most zealously studies the Support and Improvement of his Neighbourhood Here 's Business enough and I could point out to you more But why should I take pains to contrive and cut out Work for the Contemplative Man Peradventure I should do him more Service could I teach him an Art to decline it Alas Business will hunt and follow us it will intrude and press upon us whether we will or no and such is the natural Vanity such the Curiosity of our Minds that we are too often apt to make our selves work and to intangle our selves in a thousand Trifles and Impertinences I doubt therefore that it is here very needful to put those I am discoursing to in mind to take care that whilst they shun the Trouble and Business of the World they suffer not themselves to be entangled in Impertinences of their own creating that they mind and pursue the main End that is growth and increase in Vertue and be at all times ready to sacrifice Trifles and Matters of less Moment to this their great Interest least Fancy and Humour or something worse usurp the place of Reason as it does too often happen in a Life of absolute and uncontroulable Liberty Secondly Diversion This is not to be excluded from a Solitary Life they adulterate Religion who make it sower or melancholy it condemns nothing but what infects the purity or breaks the force and vigour of the Mind we are not immortal and incorruptible Beings the Soul and Body both for it were vain to contradict universal Experience sink under the weight of constant Labour it will be hard if not impossible to preserve the vigour of the Mind if we destroy the health of the Body God in another World designs us Spiritual Bodies as the most proper Instruments of these active Minds let us not therefore make them here crasie and sickly I would never have my Religion be the effect of a broken Body but an inlightned Mind I would never have it proceed from discontent conceived against this World but from the firm belief love and admiration of a better whatever therefore Diversion recreates my Mind without ensnaring it whatever repairs my Body without impairing my Vertue I embrace with open Arms I 'le not only taste but drink my fill of Pleasure if it exalt not debase my Nature I shall never complain that my Mind is too chearful or my Body too vigorous Let the Priests of Baal cut themselves with Knives and Lancets I 'le keep my Blood and Spirits if I can to support my Zeal and enrich my Fancy and in one word to serve God with Life No body can here mistake me unless they do it wilfully and therefore 't is not worth the while to anticipate any wild Objections I patronize not the Lust but the Vigour of the Body I invite not to the sensuality of a polluted Fancy but to the vertuous recreation of the Mind And while I think not a dejected and discontented Mind and a decayed Body the most acceptable Sacrifice to God I do by no means deny a penitent contrite Spirit a purified and obsequious Body to be so Thirdly As to Friendship The distinction between Acquaintance and Friends is ever good but never more proper or necessary than here for Retirement as it signifies sequestring our selves from Company is to be understood with discretion and the plain Rule here as in all other Cases is to avoid Extreams as a Croud so Solitariness seems not to minister either to the Vertue or Improvement of the Mind or to the Peace and Calm of Life the one robs us of our Time the other leaves us so much that to very many it becomes burdensome the one makes us vain trifling or it may be worse sensual the other dull and slow or it may be morose and savage The skill of a Contemplative Man is not to decline all Company but provide himself of good The Prophets themselves had their Colledges and they in the first Times who left the Cities for the Desart did yet associate themselves with one another Indeed as I take it in this kind of Life we have the fullest Enjoyment and the best Service of our Friends the purest Delight and the truest Edification being best promoted in the Contemplative Life by Friendship and therefore Friendship is no more to be banished from the Gardens and Retirements of the Contemplative than from the Tables and Enjoyments of the Active Fourthly Devotion Participation of the Lord's Supper and Meditation are the remaining parts of the Ascetick Life and indeed these ought to be his great Employment A Life in the World may be a Life of Business but a retired one ought to be a Life of Prayer Eucharist and Meditation Nor indeed can it well be otherwise unless we have proposed to our selves some false Ends of Retirement for these are not only the Duties but the Pleasures of the Ascetick Life in these the Soul 's enlightned enlarged raised ravished in these it sores up to Heaven and looks down upon Earth in these it possesses Stability and Security Peace and Rest in the midst of a frail instable Nature and a restless and tumultuous World in these all the Passions of the Soul are exercised with a most tender sensible delight sorrow fear or reverence Hate and Indignation do here express themselves to the height not only without any disorder or torture but also with great contentment and satisfaction of our Nature Love Hope Joy reign here without either Check or Satiety But I forget that these Subjects are so rich and inexhaustible they would engage me endlesly I forget that they have been treated of so often and so excellently I will therefore contract my Sails and yet I think I have said nothing of them but as they have a particular aspect upon the Subject of this Chapter and I cannot pass over Meditation without making some few Reflections upon it I know 't is a worn Subject and therefore that I may the more easily find Pardon I 'le take care that this superfluous Impertinence if it be one shall be a very short one I will